Gaming In A Straight Line: Is Linear A Dirty Word?

The idea of immersion in gaming has long been a point of interest in the gaming community. Certainly it makes me feel a little tingly in the toes. While I can not profess to be an expert in this field, nor am I completely au fait with all the values and debates that surround it, I nevertheless feel that this is an exciting issue.

In essence, immersive gaming is all about the player-driven narrative. The idea is that the player is dropped into a complete world and that they are left to their own devices in order to complete quests or tasks set them by the game rather than being propelled through the game in a straight line with little deviation. That's the idea, anyway.

Deus Ex is an example of such a title. This game placed you at the controls. You had to kill someone, but how it was done was entirely up to you. There was no right and wrong in your approach so long as you did it. It made this game into a legend, an immersive and hypnotic experience that thrilled.

Games that follow this ideology offer a far richer gaming experience and theoretically give the player the kind of control over these fantastical worlds that they long for. Er, but do most gamers really long for this? I don’t have any statistics but I'm not entirely sure that gamers really do prefer a non-linear title. Not many people really like the idea of being left to their own devices and there is also the issue of the amount of development that goes into such games.

If you think about it, part of the success of titles such as Half Life 2 are their linear structure.

When you know that every player is going to encounter a specific scene or creature then, as a developer, you’re able to put far more time and effort into perfecting that engagement. This is not really possible in the non-linear game. If players are able to wander anywhere they like, whenever they like, there is a good chance they won’t see the giant squid, man-eating toenail or whatever that lurks in one corner of the world.

An interesting article on The Brainy Gamerhas the writer praising the ideology of the author. She believes that controlled narratives in games should not be dismissed out of hand, that there is still a role for them to play in the future of gaming.

I must admit that I agree. While the non-linear titles have certainly blown me away, Far Cry 2 being a good example, I am one of those people who always ends up doing the safe thing. I ended up sneaking and sniping my way across Far Cry 2. Sorry but I am a total coward unless brow-beaten into obedience.

I may sit and moan and complain when a game forces me down a violent track that has me dying repeatedly, but in the end I love it. I enjoy beating the game, taking the challenge by the teeth and biting the hell out of it.

Narrative led games have their advantages and I don’t believe that they should be dismissed and abandoned. A well structured, balanced and tightly woven linear game is as immersive and powerful an experience as a non-linear title.

Authored narrative can be extremely compelling. The cinematic, emotional and physical involvement it engenders as you play is entertainment to the core. This is, of course, not saying that player-driven narrative fails to do this, but rather that the lazy gamer may not get as much value when left to their own devices. A forced run up a hill towards a steaming clown wielding chainsaws may not be your first choice but you’ll love every second you spend taking him down.

Clint Hockinga genius in his field and well worth reading up on constantly, has developed his own views on this subject. He says, “The games of today unsurprisingly strive to mimic the linear, authored structures of previous generations of media largely because gamers and game developers have grown up in a world where those media are culturally dominant.”

So, does placing a player into a world and saying, “Go!” really epitomise the perfect title and the future of gaming? I know that when I read other reviews and spoilers of Deus Ex I felt enormously disappointed that I’d missed certain scenes and areas.

What do you prefer? Do you want games to become more immersive player driven or do you want to just sit back and enjoy the experience? I know that I’ve barely touched the edges of this discussion and probably missed a thousand essential points so feel free to yell at me.

I want whatever fits the type of game best. The only time it bothers me is when developers try to badly shoe-horn a linear/non-linear segment in where it doesn't fit. Bioware have been guilty of this in many of their recent games giving you a choice two or three big 'stages' for no real reason.